Assisting journalists forced to flee censorship

CPJ's
Journalist Assistance Program supports journalists who cannot be helped by
advocacy alone. In 2011, we assisted 171 journalists worldwide. Almost
a fourth came from countries that made CPJ's Most Censored list. Eight journalists from Eritrea,
five from Syria, six from Cuba, and a whopping 20 from Iran sought our help
after being forced to leave their countries, having suffered the consequences
of defying censorship at home.

Each
of their stories is a little different. Some crossed borders on foot, at night,
avoiding border surveillance. Others were stuffed into planes with their
families, forbidden from returning, after years of imprisonment. Some have been
granted asylum in Western countries. Others are lingering, in hiding, hoping to
be relocated to a safe place.

The
enemies they escaped, however, are similar. They are repressive states with a
strong security apparatus dedicated to quashing dissent. They use imprisonment,
or the threat of prison, to keep rebellious reporters in line. They employ torture
and other kinds of prison brutality to teach a lesson -- not only to those who
have defied established censorship, but also to those who might.

The
Eritrean stories are of particular cruelty. They are ones that are not often
told due to the country's highly functional system of censorship and repression.
Currently, Eritrea has the second highest number of journalists in prison worldwide,
after Iran. Journalists who have fled the country and its prisons have shared
with CPJ some of the most gruesome details of their detention. One journalist
said he was kept in a fenced-in field with dozens of other prisoners: shelter
withheld; clothing forbidden; no sanitation; nourishment rare. Another said he
was jailed for months in a dark underground
cell. (Eritrean
authorities have not allowed independent
monitoring organizations access to the country's prisons.)

Hidden
away in similar conditions is the majority of what was once the country's
independent press, locked up during a massive crackdown
in 2001.
Of the 10 journalists arrested then, at least five are said to have died in custody, although
CPJ has not been able to independently confirm these reports.

Today,
with virtually no independent journalists reporting from inside the country,
Eritrea's censorship machinery is geared toward journalists in the official
press corps. Those who report on stories that slightly deviate from the government's
editorial line are threatened, questioned, or jailed. One journalist, who escaped
last year, told CPJ he lived in permanent fear because he never knew when he
would do something that could upset the regime, even when trying to tightly follow
its guidelines. He explained that, in the end, his fear gave him "no choice"
but to flee.

Another
exiled journalist said the decision to leave had been extremely difficult. Staying
in Eritrea meant prison, he said. But crossing the border could mean death.
Those who fled have done so by crossing the country's borders on foot. They have
travelled for days at time, mostly at night, trying to avoid armed guards said
to shoot individuals attempting to leave.

In
exile, however, the journalists continue to live in dread. Those who made it to
Sudan, for instance, say the situation for Eritrean refugees there is risky.
One exiled reporter told CPJ there are frequent police roundups that end in
deportation. Others said Eritrean security agents actively and openly seek out
refugees for repatriation. Consequently, many live in hiding.

The situation for Eritrean refugees is not very
different from that of the 68 journalists who, by CPJ's count, have fled Iran
since the 2009 contested presidential election. Iranians in Turkey and Iraq,
and even those in France and the United States, expressed similar fears that
the long arm of the Iranian security apparatus could reach them in exile, as
Sheryl Mendez and I recently reported for Attacks on the Press in
2011.

Meanwhile, the more than 20 Cuban journalists released
from prisons and sent to Spain following July 2010 talks between the government
of President Raúl Castro and the Catholic Church live in a different kind of
fear. They are not scared of being sent back to Cuba. Instead, they dread
economic straits and bureaucratic barriers in Spain, as Borja Bergareche reported in 2011. Last
month, Mijaíl Bárzaga Lugo told CPJ that his family
was out of food, and had no money to pay rent or bills. The anguish of forced
exile, and long years of repression and incarceration in Cuba, are said to have
been what recently drove Cuban journalist Albert Santiago Du Bouchet Hernández
to suicide.

María Salazar-Ferro is CPJ’s Impunity Campaign and Journalist Assistance Program coordinator. A native of Bogotá, she studied at Universidad de los Andes, in Bogotá, and graduated from the University of Virginia. She reports on exiled and missing journalists, and has represented CPJ on missions to Mexico and the Philippines, among others.